The Family Court Accountability Coalition engages in Judicial, Legislative and Executive Branch advocacy on behalf of socioeconomically disadvantaged family court stakeholders. According to the Judicial Council of California, 75 percent of family court litigants are self-represented because they cannot afford an attorney. Yet many courts cater to attorneys and the parties they are paid to represent, while denying the indigent meaningful and effective access to family court services.

Monday, November 21, 2011

According to a 2005 survey [pdf] of the public, the strongest predictor by far of whether members of the public approve or have confidence in the courts was:

Having a sense that court decisions are made through processes that are fair.

Between November 2004 and February 2005, over 2,400 California adults were surveyed regarding their:

Knowledge about the courts and the sources of that knowledge

Perceived and experienced barriers to court access

Experiences as jurors, litigants, or consumers of court information

Expectations for what the courts should be doing

Sense of the accessibility, fairness and efficiency of the courts

The study was commissioned by the Administrative Office of the Courts on behalf of the Judicial Council of California, and the results were published [pdf] in September 2005. We'll cover more of the study results in future posts.